Last year is soooo, well, last year. But before we bid it a formal adieu, let’s get into one of our favorite annual happenings:
Yup, we’re currently experiencing a resurgence of 2012 love thanks to the recent arrival of the 2012 Petersik Family Yearbook.
We love ordering a photobook each January (which we share every year) to encapsulate the previous year’s favorite photos. We were big fans of the first one that we bought back in 2010 from MyPublisher, so we’ve stuck with them each year since so that all of the books look similar (plus, we love the quality). So with the addition of yearbook number three, we’re finally starting to have a nice little collection going.
This year’s book was a bit late in coming because I’m very strategic about ordering from MyPublisher. I like to use up the maximum allowed number of pages (100). But since you pay per page (after the first 35) it usually costs over $100 per book. BUT, I get MyPublisher’s promotional emails every week (maybe I signed up on their site, I don’t remember) and I know that they regularly run a “FREE EXTRA PAGES” discount. So even though I put the finishing touches on our book in early January (I was quite eager this year), I camped out for weeks while I waited for them to run that particular promotion. And I’m so glad I did. Boom, $80 saved.
Just like we did with last year’s book, we opened with a “highlights” page to sort of summarize the year in a few bullet points.
But rather than just re-type them for you guys, we thought we’d share some of the corresponding pages inside. So here goes nothing!
Some of the other bullets were:
- Finish kitchen renovation
- Visit Granny and redo her bathroom
- Sherry turns the big 3-0
- Jesse & Slinky dog costumes for Halloween
- Host Christmas dinner at our house
One new thing that we did this year was also to include a special Instagram section at the back. Since 2012 was the year that we got started addicted, it was only fitting that we dedicated a few pages at the end of our family yearbook to some of our favorite little candid snapshots.
Now the only bummer is that we’ve gotta wait another ten months or so ’til we get to make the next book in the series. Oh well. I guess in the meantime we’ll just try to take lots of photos. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have an issue with that…
Oh and I think this shot really demonstrates the value of these books as a way to document your life year by year.
Three photo albums wouldn’t be nearly as thin and easily storable or displayable (their pages are thicker and their bindings are huge). But we imagine that even after a decade of yearbook-making we’ll be able to easily store (or display) ten or more of them in a nice little stack, as opposed to a decade’s worth of photo albums, which could easily take up an entire shelf.
And when it comes to cost, hello money in my pocket.
If you do the math, 100 pages of photos with an average of 7 photos per page = 700 photos. Which is a TON of photos for each year, but we’re snap-happy like that. And it usually costs around 15 cents per picture on sites like Target or Shutterfly (that’s their best “bulk” price), so for 700 prints it would be $105! But you’d still need to buy albums if you were doing it the old school way (at Target they’re around $15 for each album, and they typically hold 200 photos, so to store 700 you’d need four albums! So to get a nice custom made book for $45.99 versus spending $165 for traditional prints & albums – well, we’re down.
You can read our original post from 2010 with a little more about why we became photobook converts in the first place along what we put in that album. And if you’ve got another system – or an alternate photo storage trick – we’d love to hear about it. Until then you can find us taking pictures. Lots and lots of pictures…
I never had a desire to scrapbook since it takes so much time and stuff, but I love the concept of documenting each year. I think you convinced me to start doing these books!
Love those photo albums! I actually get my prints for 9 cents each from snapfish and store them in photo boxes (which you can usually find at michael’s for only $1.99 on sale!)
Amazing! I’m so bad at photoboxes (I dump everything in instead of using those dividers, haha!).
xo
s
I need to do that for our family! I love the photo books. I have made some paperback ones for our kids, just of pictures of them, that they love, and can take to school and show off.
On an unrelated note, did you see that JCPenney is launching a Jonathan Adler collaboration this month? I saw it and thought of you guys! It looks AWESOME!
So excited!!
xo
s
The book looks awesome :)
I started making yearly photo books with my publisher after you posted about it… i just got my 2012 one last month and waited for the “free extra pages” promotion too! I also made a few more… honeymoon, wedding…
When i was ordering one of those they were running a promotion for free super gloss printing, which is normally like $10 i think… but the book looks AMAZING!! The pages are shiny and waterproof… it’s like high quality photo paper. Now when i order books from them i always get the super gloss printing even if i have to pay for it.
Just thought i’d share :)
Woah, that sounds awesome!
xo
s
Oh my GOSH, what an awesome idea to make photo books. I’m overwhelmed at the idea of starting something like that. Maybe someday!!!
Amazing! I really need to start putting my photos into hard copy. You never know when the interwebs might crash. Heaven forbid! My entire life is on the internet.
Ours too! Literally. Haha!
xo
s
Check out Becky Higgins project life! It’s my absolute favorite way to scrapbook and hold all our precious memories:) and hello it’s easy! Bam!
Sounds awesome!
xo
s
I really enjoy using Project Life! It allows me to be as creative as I want, and other times when I’m strapped for time or just over it, I slip the photos inside the sleeves and move on!
I really appreciated your post on this when you first started because even though I am a year behind (still 2011 to do) it atleast made me conscious of developing a sound folder system by month so it will be easier when I am ready to.
My hold up is I wanted to believe that I will some how have time to EDIT my pictures first but I’m about ready to let go of that for atleast 2011 and 2012. Mainly because I just havent had to time to learn how to edit photos :( my copy of lightroom sits there laughing at me…
Do you edit every single picture that goes in the book??
Oh no way! I mean when we place them sometimes we crop them down as we put them into the layout, and occasionally we’ll lighten up maybe one every 20 or so if they’re really dark, but editing all 700 photos would take us a million years!
xo
s
I’m so curious about the first photo!!
I’ve started doing a yearly photo book as well. However I used blurb this past year since they don’t cap the pages at 100. Though they didn’t offer the nice discount you used. :)
Thank you for this post! I have been wanting to do this forever since we have been a family since 2001. I am always waiting because I thought you had to have a caption of some great story for each photo or page. Having highlights in the front and then just a great collection of photos is perfect’ I have even read from others that they order extra copies to pass on to their children when they leave the nest.
That’s so awesome! Plus, it makes each picture like $.15 each which is less than if you printed them separately and made an album. I’m such a dork :P
After you did this last year, I got the MyPublisher bug, so thanks for this wonderful idea :) Guests love looking at our books, and it’s nice to have those pics out of our hard drive and somewhere where we can glance at them easily (and not take up a lot of space on the bookshelf!).
For everyone else thinking of going the same yearbook route, here are some tips I’ve learned along the way:
1. Once you upload your photos to the computer, immediately put them into folders so you can easily sort through them. Naming them with the month also helps you go through the book-making process chronologically (e.g., “January – DH’s Birthday” and “Feb – Vacation”).
2. Start putting together your book as early on into the New Year as possible. For some reason, I remembered the Extra Free Pages promo happening later into the year, so I procrastinated. Sherri is right in that the promo started sometime in January. The result: an entire weekend of frantically putting together a photo book. Of course, I think the promo happens a few times a year, but I love to check off tasks and receive my shiny new book as early as possible :)
3. The lay-flat pages are a good investment (it’s $20 extra per the website) if you max out the pages. Sometimes edges of pictures near the book creases get cut off. Hint: when it comes time to order, don’t select the lay-flat pages when they first ask you about it. Riiiight before you confirm your order, they’ll ask you about it again, and magically they’ve discounted the option to $10.
Happy MyPublisher-ing!
So smart!
xo
s
Thank you for the tip on the lay-flat pages!!
love this yearbook idea. I’m sure I saw it on your site in previous years {been a follower for a while}, but I finally received my first photobook creation which chronicles our 48 day tour of Southeast Asia…it took me nearly a year to sift through the over 3000 photos and purge down to just 500 or so…but so, so worth it.
Check it out on our blog here…
http://ankneyadventure.blogspot.com/2013/02/our-travel-book-finally.html
Amazing! It’s so thick and gorgeous!
xo
s
I just LOVE My Publisher! Since my hubs and I don’t have kids yet (aka our lives are pretty dull) I make books for each vacation we go on :) I started with our honeymoon to South Carolina, the following year we went to Portland OR & this spring hopefully I’ll be making one filled with Florida beaches!
& I highly recommend the lay flat pages for your future books, I know they’re about $20 more but they really are so worth it!
That’s so sweet Laurel!
xo
s
We made one of those books for our son’s 1st year, but I’ve been slack and haven’t started the one for his 2nd year yet — thanks for the reminder!!
Your yearbook looks fantastic! That is such a great idea and something I really need to do for myself. I have a back log of 9yrs of photos just sitting in my computer’s hard drive (and no worries, got ’em backed up on the external drive, too)! And prior to that, I have the hard copy prints from pre-digital days stuffed into photo boxes. Unfortunately, those will have to reside in the bulky albums (when I get around to it!). Thanks for the inspiration. :-)
We do an annual photo book too, but we do them by year of marriage rather than calendar year. So our first book starts on our honeymoon and goes until the first anniversary, and so on. We figure that years down the line, the format will remind us the the marriage relationship is the center of our family.
That’s so sweet! I love that.
xo
s
You guys inspired me to start making annual family yearbooks too. I LOVE how they have turned out. It is so much fun to make and see how many awesome things you did in a year. Great to see your 2012 book… I still need to put mine together! :)
Aw I’m so glad Kristen!
xo
s
It is such a sweet family thing to have! I keep thinking about making one…yet I never do. We don’t have kids yet so I am thinking that may be the catalyst. Sometimes I wonder what would fill our pages…
Love your photobook! I’m a traditdional scrapbooker – Creative Memories – and have loved doing it. But with 2 kids now it’s getting daunting…..and waaaayyyyy too many books! So I see myself finishing up the books I have and moving toward the digital world. I like the idea of thin books!
I LOVE IT! Have you all ever done a post on how you organize your photos? It used to be easy with my mac because they all got uploaded to iPhoto, but now I find millions of folders and a hot photo mess!
We just use iPhoto and have one album marked 2013 family pics. It automatically stores them by date, so it’s easy to see when they were taken and keep them in order and just upload them that way when it’s time to make a book!
xo
s
Man… what’s going on in that photo?!??!!? Dying…!!!
We do the yearbook thing too – such a nice keepsake (and SO much less time consuming and bulky than scrapbooking). Started with our wedding photobook (http://thesweetestdigs.com/2011/10/11/making-a-wedding-photo-book/) and we just kept on going from there. We love using Blurb(we like the big square books)!
Mmm, big square books sound awesome!
xo
s
I’ve been wanting to make a photo book for my college study abroad semester for a while now. I actually started one with MyPublisher because I love their finished products but I got a little sidelined because their downloadable software program was ridiculously slow! It’s constantly lagging and freezing… did you have any issues with it or is it somehow my computer? I really want to give it another go but I want to decide if I should switch programs or just power through it. Thanks! :)
Weird! We’ve never had that issue but it could have been a glitch or something on their end? Maybe try back later?
xo
s
I was always on the yearbook staff in school, so this is something I love to do, although I’m a little behind lately. My goal was always to buy extra copies, so each of my kids would have a set to keep as a family history.
So cute!
xo
s
I loved your first photobook post…thinking about making a yearbook with not many words was very freeing to me. I used to scrapbook and now that I have kids, thinking about captioning every picture made me freeze up! HA!
I’ve made two mypublisher books so far, with only pictures…My twins just turned three so I’m a year behind! I have a question that you guys might have answered before…what’s your photo storage system. Do you organize by month? Or by event? Also, how do you stick all the instagram or iPhone pics into that organization? Do you organize them with your real camera photos or separately. Just looking for tips on photo storage! Thanks!
We just use iPhoto and have one album marked 2013 family pics. It automatically stores them by date, so it’s easy to see when they were taken and keep them in order and just upload them that way when it’s time to make a book!
xo
s
Got my 2012 book last week! So exciting.
I bought a gift certificate offered at Christmas $100 for $50 since I knew I was ordering. I’ve been a long time scrapbooker but enjoy the simplicity of the books. I design my own pages sometimes but use the templates on others.
Have books for 2010,2011, and 2012. Have 2009 started and will wait for a sale.
What a fun year your family had!
So awesome to go back in time like that! I want to do that since we have a ton of old albums in Clara’s playroom closet.
xo
s
You’re installing a drop ceiling in the living room?! Fancy!!! ;)
Hahah!
xo
s
I really love this idea and can’t wait to do this. Thanks for the tip on saving money!
When you expand your family, consider how you’ll divide them once your kids are grown–you might even want two of each. My MIL spent years making gorgeous scrapbooks for my husband and his brother. It was a great gift when she gave them to us!
Oh yes, they save your file on their site (and we download it on ours) so we can always make more in the future :)
xo
s
that’s a GREAT point about dividing the books among siblings!!
I started doing yearbooks when I saw the idea on your blog. I did mine on Shutterfly (with MyCoke Rewards points they are free), but the quality is just ok. I decided to check out My Publisher and they sent me an offer for buy one-get one. FYI for your readers. :) Your yearbook turned out awesome! I am officially making the switch to My Publisher.
That’s awesome!
xo
s
So happy to see this post!! My hubby and I welcomed our little one last year… and I thought… NOW is the time to start doing family yearbooks like YoungHouseLove. Sooooo I was working away on it the first week of January when I got a 50% off coupon in my e-mail box… that expired in 2 days! So I stayed up 1/2 the night and got that book done while the little one slept… to save $30+ dollars! My husband was like, just order it full price later and I said “NO WAY!!” Haha! Glad I’m not alone in this!!
Love your site AS ALWAYS!!
Haha, anything to save a buck!
xo
s
Ah, those books are great. Too bad I only take pictures of rocks I like or my plant as it dies a sad, painful death. Not sure that would make a very nice yearbook.
Haha! That sounds like it could be a bestselling photo book if it was artsy enough.
xo
s
I love this idea and when you posted about it the first time around, I started making my own, too. I LOVE MyPublisher! I’m the kind of person who never stops taking pictures, and I would have ended up with a whole house full of photo albums when it’s all said and done. This is so much more simple and a clean, easy way to keep everything organized. Plus, the books are just so pretty and shiny! I have also made gift books for my husband’s 30th, my mom’s 60th (both with photos of them as kids all the way to now), and I make a family yearbook each year now. Thank you for the wonderful idea!
Of course Melissa! That’s so sweet to make them as gifts too!
xo
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It’s going to be taboo to say this…. but I’m a photographer and I haven’t printed out many pictures. Whoa. I just admitted that.
I REALLY want to get going with doing yearbooks like this, how long does it take to put the pictures in there? Is the system set up pretty nicely? I’d love a tutorial ;) ;)
Oh yes, it’s pretty simple. You literally drag and drop things (and choose layouts by clicking on them, so if you want six boxes you click on six boxes and then drag and drop photos into each one).
xo
s
This post makes me feel incredibly inadequate. My one mommy guilt comes down to pictures. It’s just not something I keep up with. I know my daughter would love to have a book like this to flip through, but it’s so pathetic putting together an album of badly lit iphone pictures. I’m good at lots of things, but keeping up with memories is my big weakness.
Aw Kate, it’s not too hard if you ever decide to play around. Maybe just making a book with 20 pages, each with a fun event or birthday or activity on it will make you feel like the queen of the world? No pressure of course, but I know you can do it if you’d like to someday :)
xo
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Thank you guys for sharing all your awesome ideas. My parents were hardworking immigrants who didn’t have much time for sentimentality, the priority was to clothe and feed the 4 kids and get them through school. I am so grateful for the ideas so that I can start my own traditions and keepsakes. You Petersiks are the cutest family ever!
Aw thanks so much! Your parents sound amazing.
xo
s
I sm SO on board with doing the yearly yearbook thing (but I haven’t done it yet). I want to go back to 2007 (when my older daughter was born). That seems so overwhelming! In my mind, I want to start by going backward (starting with 2012 and working my way back) as well as organizing my photos from this year as I take them (so it’s not a bunch of work at the end of the year). At least you have the blog to remind you of what you did! Time goes so fast. These books are great, great tip about waiting for a promo code, too!
Love this! I made a photo book for my wedding, as a gift to my parents and went over great. Amazing quality. I think we will have to do this! I’m a sucker for Shutterfly. I’ve been on their email list so long, I get fantastic discounts and deals. I just wait around for the best deal and then pounce. :) I’d recommend signing up for their emails- occasionally they send out things like 101 free prints for a very limited time (like 24 or 48 hours), and it’s a great time to stock up on Christmas card prints or anything else you have a hankering for.
That is such a great idea! I have a ton of photos that just sit in my photo folder hiding in my computer. I categorize them by month and year, so I think I am gonna have to make me a few books, I am gonna keep these guys busy! Thanks for the info!
Just thought everyone would want to know that MyPublisher is offering a FREE photobook for new customers!!! :) I was going to check them out and was very pleasantly suprised! thanks for sharing!
Wahoo!
xo
s
We are doing something similar, except instead of doing 1 per year, we’ve been doing one per duty station (since we are a military fan) because with our lifestyle it just feels more organized that way, and an easy way to look back on each place we’ve called home. Once we have kiddos we may reevaluate frequency though.
We always wait for a 50% or 60% off deal before we order. I’m torn between wanting to try a new company (because I DONT love the quality of the last one we ordered… Many pictures turned out super dark), and wanting all the books to match each other.
Have you thought about back tracking and doing a 07-08 or even before? I would love to get this done but just have not done it yet! It seems like such a daunting task!
Yes, I’d love to do that and get rid of our bulky photo albums!
xo
s
Just a random question for ya. We live in an old, and I’m talking O.L.D. house… best guess is around 1840. Well, the old owners started, but never finished ripping out the old plaster and lathe ceilings and so they put ugly drop tile (and we’re talking U.G.L.Y., you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly!)over it and called it good.
So here’s my question… we’ve got three kiddos running around and have never demoed with them in the house. What should do to make sure we’re protecting them as we do this… besides getting them out of the house of course?
Also, not sure what’s up with the walls, but once we do rip out the plaster and lathe on the ceilings we’ll need to add some drywall to make the walls tall enough to match up. Can you match up new drywall with old style stuff nicely? I’m kind of afraid to see what’s back there since my husband once measured about 4 ft between studs in one place with his stud finder… they may even run horizontally… ugh! Can you say afraid to start??! I’m afraid we’re opening a can of worms… but I can’t wait to raise the ceilings (raise the roof?) and stop feeling like I’m living in a 1980’s basement. Any suggestions?
Eeks, your house would have lead paint (could is a strange word – since it most definitely does) so any demo you do should follow safety guidelines for dealing with lead (even if they’re gone, if they come home and breathe in lead dust it’s dangerous) so I’d google around to learn about dealing with lead (how to properly clean it up and protect yourself, etc). As for adding drywall there are different thicknesses so hopefully you can find something that matches up (you can measure it and come home and measure the gap to see which depth works best and use shims to bridge an small gaps you need width-wise). Hope it helps!
xo
s
The books are so precious! You are going to love and value those so much through the years and think how much they will mean to Clara because you put them together so your personality is infused in every page. She will cherish them.
Worth all the monies!
Where is the cover picture from?
It’s from a festival here in Richmond called the Folk Festival. It was a mural painted by a local (and you could pose in front of it).
xo
s
We do this too! Don’t you just LOVE My Publisher? We do the linen-wrapped cover and we order two — one for each kid. They even choose these over their school yearbooks (we make them choose).
Ooh that sounds swanky!
xo
s
Love how the books look stacked up. I just finished up yearbook 2011. I’m a little behind. I saw you wrote in one of your comments that John spends a few hours over a few days. I’m so impressed. I have a hard time deciding what pictures to use so it takes me a long time to complete. I’m not complaining though. I LOVE the process of making it. It’s fun walking down memory lane with baby pictures of my kids. Oh, I LOVE the addition of the instagram pictures at the end. Totally stealing that idea. Thanks!
One last thought, I mentioned to you guys on a previous post that you can order 4×4 prints from the Shutterfly App thats perfect for ordering instagram pictures. They are running a promotion right now for 10 free prints. I know you guys love a deal. I’m going to order them and I will report back on the quality.
** For a limited time, order 10 FREE 4×4 square prints with promo code 10FREE. App only special! **
I think this is my longest comment ever to you. Love you guys!!
Haha, love the long comment Tara!
xo
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Oy, I realllllly need to order our wedding album. We just hit five months yesterday and I just got my dress cleaned. I’m chalking it up to being all wrapped up in marital bliss and not having time :-)
Hahah! That’s a great excuse.
xo
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Sometimes there are groupons for my publisher.